


Really Love Your Peaches Wanna Shake Your Tree

by acolonf6



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:51:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acolonf6/pseuds/acolonf6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia starts visiting San Francisco quite a bit after Lizzie moves there, but her sister isn't the only one she's spending her time with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I reference a _lot_ of things in this, so this is my blanket disclaimer that I of course own none of it.

“I feel like we’re kids whose parents have left them home alone without a babysitter for the first time,” Lydia mused.  
“True,” Gigi replied. “Except we’re big girls now, and mom and dad won’t mind if we break into the liquor cabinet while they’re out.” Gigi grabbed a bottle of red wine and two glasses.  
 _Yeah, but your liquor cabinet probably has zillion dollar scotch, not Boone’s Farm_ , Lydia thought.  
She was definitely at the point where she’d consider Gigi Darcy a friend, but tonight was the first time they’d really be spending any time together alone. She’d gotten to know the Darcys and Fitz pretty well since Lizzie had _finally_ started dating Darcy and moved to San Francisco permanently. Lydia had visited Lizzie in San Francisco several times now, however, most of their time together was spent as a group; Lydia didn’t spend much time alone with any of them apart from Lizzie, who liked to take off from work and spend time with her “favorite baby sis” whenever she came to town.

Lydia had _almost_ gotten used to the luxurious, sprawling “apartment” that had more square footage than the Bennet family home, but she wasn’t quite there yet.  
“We should eat out on the terrace tonight,” Gigi suggested enthusiastically.  
Lydia resisted the urge to ask _which one_? She knew the answer she’d receive: Technically, there’s only one terrace; the other two are balconies. Lydia occasionally still had to remind herself that she does actually like these people, and that she wants them to like her back (and that tweeting out things they’ve said with hashtags like #FirstWorldProblems was considered “in poor taste”).  
Instead, Lydia asked “Are we having wine for dinner, or will there be actual food involved, too? I mean, I’m good either way, but—”  
“Oh, right!” Gigi paused, already hallway to the terrace door. “We can just order something in, then. What are you in the mood for?”  
“Anything but Chinese, I’ve seen enough Honey Walnut shrimp in this apartment to last a lifetime,” Lydia rolled her eyes, and Gigi laughed.  
“How do you feel about Vietnamese-Creole fusion?” Gigi asked with a playful half-smile.  
“You know that I have no idea what that means,” Lydia said, eyes narrowed. “I’m trusting you to order something edible, if not, I’ve got my wine.”  
“Hey, if you end up hating it all, that’s just more for me. William and Lizzie are out celebrating, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be, too.”  
Ever since the 6 days/a week debate, Lizzie and Darcy had this thing about celebrating weird milestones. Between having 100 vlogs as videographic evidence and the two of them both being giant nerds, there were a lot of weird milestones to be celebrated. Tonight, however, was a big one: The 1 year anniversary of their horrifically awkward first dance. Lizzie insisted that they celebrate by going dancing. Darcy politely invited the sisters along, but Lydia had replied “As much as I’d love to see you and my sister grinding all up on each other in public, I think I’ll pass.” Gigi had agreed.

“OK, tell me the truth, are we eating out on the terrace so that we’ll be out of the way when they get back, or are we out here to spy because they’ll probably be too wrapped up in each other to notice that we’re out here and we can totally see them through these huge glass windows?” Lydia asked as they settled down on the terrace with their wine.  
“No! Well, not really. I mean, it certainly doesn’t hurt, but mostly I just like eating out on the terrace. William prefers eating indoors, even when it’s nice out like tonight.”  
“It is nice,” Lydia admitted, looking out over the city as she sipped her wine. “I can see why Lizzie likes living here.”  
Gigi giggled, “I hope you mean _San Francisco_ when you say living here, because she is most certainly not living in this apartment,” Gigi said in an affected voice, somewhere near Lizzie’s impression of Catherine DeBourgh.  
“Oh of course not,” Lydia replied, playing along. “Lizzie is merely _staying_ here until she finds an apartment of her own to move into,” Lydia laughed before dropping back into her own voice. “Seriously though, how is Lizzie’s Apartment Hunt going? She usually makes a show of taking me to look at places with her when I come to town, but she hasn’t mentioned anything about it yet.”  
“Well you know she took Jane with her when she came visit, and Lizzie and Charlotte went and looked at a few places when she was in town last weekend,” Gigi said, thoughtfully.  
“But then as soon as they were gone she got ‘too busy’ again and _still_ hasn’t picked a place?” Lydia rolled her eyes.  
“Pretty much. I mean, to be fair she is really busy with work. Starting your own company is hard,” Gigi added. They’d had this conversation several times, mostly via text, and Gigi always liked to play Devil’s Advocate. “But whenever someone brings it up, she always says that she hasn’t found some place ‘suitable’ as of yet.”  
“And no one ever calls her on the fact that ‘suitable’ is totes just code for ‘no place will be good enough if it doesn’t have my hot boyfriend in the bed across the hall’?”  
Gigi just laughed as she reached for the bottle of wine to refill both of their glasses. “No! Basically we’re all at the point right now where we indulge her in her apartment hunting and very pointedly don’t bring up that her guest bedroom is a glorified closet at this point since she’s definitely spending every night in William’s room. No one has a problem with Lizzie moving in here so fast, except for Lizzie, so we’re just trying to not scare her away until she accepts the fact that she’s here to stay.”  
“Is it weird living here full time with your brother and his girlfriend shacking up here together?” Lydia asked, scrunching her nose.  
“Well, we all have plenty of space, and it’s not as though we’re sharing a bathroom or anything, but I have a feeling that Lizzie finally moving all of her things into William’s bedroom is going to coincide nicely with me finally getting a place of my own again.” There was a brief moment as the unsaid sunk in for both of them. _The last time I lived on my own..._ they’ve carefully skirted around the issue each time it’s nearly come up. Gigi opened her mouth again, and Lydia wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but luckily they were interrupted by the buzzer. “That’ll be our food! I’ll be right back.”

“Whatever that is, it smells awesome!” Lydia called as Gigi returned, bringing with her the strong scent of delicious food.  
When Gigi stepped out onto the terrace, Lydia saw that in addition to the bags of take-out, she also brought another bottle of wine. “I realized as I was coming back that most of this food would pair better with white wine than with red,” Gigi explained.  
Lydia drained the rest of the red wine from her glass. “Sounds good to me,” she said, holding it out for a refill.

 

After an ungodly amount of garlic noodles with crawfish, and nearly as much wine, Gigi and Lydia had reached the kind of drunk where you’re just really and truly _honest._  
“You know that I hate him, I hate him more than I hate anyone else,” Lydia was saying.  
“Yes! He’s just the _worst!”_ Gigi agreed, emphatically.  
“But he was _really_ fucking good in bed,” Lydia concluded, stopping just short of banging her head on the glass table.  
“I KNOW, RIGHT!?” Gigi exclaimed. “Can we cheers to that?”  
They had been cheers-ing to a lot of things that night; it was a practiced movement when they reached forward enough to clink the bottom of their bottles together. They had given up on the glasses in favor of drinking straight from the bottles; Lyda the white, Gigi the red.  
“Sometimes I miss that about him. I wish I could just scoop out all the douchebag parts of his brain and leave all the sex parts in,” Gigi said.  
“Then he’d just be like a sex-bot or something,” Lydia said dreamily, like she was imagining it.  
“I think I’d be okay with that,” Gigi decided.  
“Remember that thing he could do with his tongue?” Lydia asked.  
“That thing! That thing he did with his tongue!” Gigi shouted, emphatically. “That stupid tongue thing has _haunted_ me!” She puts her hands up to her eyes, nearly knocking herself in the face with her wine bottle in the process.  
“Me, too. Which is why I learned how to do it,” Lydia said.  
Gigi slammed her bottle down on the table so hard, Lydia was surprised it didn’t crack. “You know how to do the tongue thing?” Gigi asked pointedly.  
Lydia just nodded.  
“Show me how to do the tongue thing!” Gigi insisted.  
Before she could even think about what she was doing, Lydia had put her own bottle down on the table and was hovering over Gigi’s chair, leaning down towards her mouth.  
“Well,” Lydia said, her voice low and quiet. “It’s kinda like this.”  
Gigi’s lips parted in anticipation, and Lydia’s lips met them, her tongue sliding into Gigi’s mouth. Gigi moaned in delight, and broke them apart.  
“Wait, so is it like this?” She asked, before sliding her own tongue into Lydia’s mouth.  
“Almost, you just forgot one little thing,” Lydia said, correcting Gigi’s form.  
It wasn’t long before both girls were experts at the tongue move.  
By the time Gigi pulled them apart, giggling, and said “That wasn’t part of the tongue move I remember!” Lydia was practically lying on the table, and Gigi was half on top of her.  
“That wasn’t from him, that bit was all Lydia,” she said, nipping at Gigi’s lip.  
They had nearly knocked either the food or the bottles of wine off the table three times before they decided it was time to clean up dinner and head inside to find out what else they could use those tongues for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fairly certain that I've jacked up the timeline here, but we're just going pretend the continuity of it all makes sense.  
> Also, I'm working beta-less with a non-functioning spellchecker on my Word over here, so please feel free to let me know if I've missed any glaring errors.


	2. Chapter 2

When Lydia woke up the next morning, the light just starting to filter in the windows, she had a pounding headache, and she could tell she wasn’t in her own bed. There was a time when this wasn’t out of the ordinary for her, but Lydia had decided to put all of that behind her; she was worried and confused for a few moments until she opened her eyes.

Gigi. She was in bed with Gigi Darcy. She breathed a sigh of relief until the full meaning of what had happened hit her. She was in bed with _Gigi Darcy_. Lydia may not be as versed in etiquette as her apparent bedfellow, but even she knew that you weren’t supposed to hook up with a girl who was destined to be your sister-in-law. The things they had done last night most definitely did not fall into the category of _sisterly_.

And yet, as she raked her eyes over Gigi’s sleeping body, she couldn’t find it within herself to regret it. Gigi had ended up in her bra and nothing else by the end of the night. Lydia smirked until she glanced down at herself to see how she’d fared: tube socks. She was wearing nothing but her tube socks. _Real classy, Lydia_ , she thought to herself.

Lydia briefly considered sneaking back to her own room without waking Gigi in order to avoid the inevitably awkward conversation, but then she thought about Gigi waking up hungover and naked and _alone_ and decided that staying was worth any embarassment that would follow.

She threw the comforter over herself and snuggled back down into the insanely soft bed, promptly falling back asleep.

She didn’t wake again until the sounds of an alien invasion attacked her brain.

“What’s that noise?” She groaned, burrowing her head further under the covers.

“Alarm, time to get up for work,” Gigi said, sounding hoarse. She reached out and slammed her arm down in the general direction of the alarm until it stopped.

“This is going to be an excellent morning,” Lydia said, propping herself up on her elbow and sounding equally wrecked.

Gigi rolled towards Lydia, but barely lifted her head. She reached out her arm and put it on Lydia’s back, sliding it up towards her neck, and pulling down, like she was trying to pull Lydia down to her to give her a kiss.

“What time is it?” Gigi asked, sleepily.

“6:30 in the fucking morning,” Lydia said, glancing over at the clock.

“Why did we drink so much on a weeknight?” Gigi asked, finally lifting her head enough to really look at Lydia and smiled.

Lydia brought her face down even closer to Gigi’s and whispered “I think we drank exactly the right amount.”

Gigi pulled a little more on Lydia’s neck and brought their faces together, kissing her slowly, and tenderly before parting.

“We have the worst morning breath ever,” Gigi said, with a grin.

“Note to self: garlic, seafood, and wine do not make a good combination for the morning after,” Lydia proclaimed, before rolling out of bed and walking towards Gigi’s bathroom door, picking up her clothes from the night before on the way.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Gigi asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I drank two bottles of wine last night; my bladder is screaming!”

“Hey! You didn’t have both of those bottles by yourself you know,” Gigi protested.

“Fine, one and a half,” Lydia smirked. “And what are you looking at?” Lydia asked putting her hands on her hips, when she noticed the way Gigi was eyeing her.

“Nothing, just...I guess that answers that question,” Gigi said vaguely.

“What question?” Lydia asked sharply.

“Whether you sleep in those socks! We never see you without them,” Gigi said, gesturing towards Lydia’s sole article of clothing.

“You never know when the opportunity for sock slides will present itself in this apartment!” Lydia called as she closed the door to the bathroom.

 

When Lydia returned to the bedroom, more clothed than when she’d entered the bathroom, she went back to the bed and flopped back down next to Gigi.

“So, about the socks...” she began.

“I was just kidding Lydia. You know William and I weren’t making fun of you, right?” Gigi interrupted.

“No, no. I know that. I was just wondering if you were going to tell him that I do on occasion sleep in my tube socks,” Lydia finished quietly, not looking at Gigi.

“Oh, no. I wasn’t planning on it. At least not about how I found out that you do,” Gigi said. “And what about you? Are you planning on telling Lizzie...” she trailed off, not knowing what Lydia would be telling Lizzie about her.

“That being raised a Darcy has made you so anal about always being put together that you always have to match your bra to your underwear?” Lydia suggested, smiling.

“I don’t _always_ —okay, yeah, pretty much always,” Gigi laughed, burying her face in her pillows.

Lydia laughed along with her, feeling light and free, before taking a breath and replying, “But to answer your question, no, I wasn’t planning on telling Lizzie anything right now. OK?”

“Okay,” Gigi whispered back.

“Alright, I think I’m gonna sneak back to my room before Lizzie comes to wake me up or something and finds an empty bed.”

Gigi sighed melodramatically, “Fine, leave me if you must, so what are you going to say if you get caught sneaking out of my room?”

“I don’t know,” Lydia shrugged. “That we were watching movies in your room and fell asleep?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Gigi said, as she turned her head to watch Lydia leave, but then said “Wait a sec, if you really don’t want Lizzie asking questions you might want to borrow a sweater or something before you go.”

“Why?” Lydia asked as she went over to the mirror to look at herself. Gigi made a turning motion with her hand and Lydia turned to look at her back and saw a large hickey on her shoulder blade, clearly visible with her in just her tank top.

“Sorry,” Gigi cringed, as Lydia went to Gigi’s closet and grabbed a cardigan to throw on.

“It’s alright,” Lydia said with a wicked half-smile as she walked back towards the bed. “It matches the bite-mark on your ass.” Lydia slapped Gigi playfully on her still-bare ass before turning to leave. Gigi giggled and rolled herself up in her sheets as Lydia tossed over her shoulder, “See ya later, Peach.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this is a short chapter. they're all pretty short, really. I only really have to finish one scene, and the whole thing is still under 6k, so yeah, expect chapters to be short.


	3. Chapter 3

When Lydia finally reemerged from her own room, after having showered and changed, she found Lizzie, Darcy, and Gigi all having breakfast and getting ready together in the kitchen.

“Hey! Good morning Lydia,” Lizzie said, brightening when she saw her sister.

“Morning Lizzie, Darcys,” Lydia said with a nod, trying not act visibly different towards Gigi, as she poured herself some coffee.

“So, Lydia, I wanted to run this past you earlier, but—” Lizzie gave Darcy a significant glance.

“You were busy celebrating your weird anniversary with your mancake, yeah, got it,” Lydia finished for her, rolling her eyes.

Lizzie blushed, trying not to smile too hard, and continued, “Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to come to work with me today?”

“Really?” Lydia said, slightly confused. “Just to hang out, or are you recruiting your sister as slave labor?”

“No, I know that you’re...taking the semester off from classes, and you’ve been visiting a lot, and I was just wondering if you wanted to stay here more permanently or at least more frequently, and see what it’s like where I work.”

“Wait, are you trying to _hire_ me?” Lydia asked, even more confused. She knew that her family was still worried about her, especially since she’d decided drop out for the rest of the semester after everything happened, but this was a stretch even for them.

“Not really, that would imply that I could afford to pay you,” Lizzie said with an awkward shrug. “I guess this would be more of a job shadow sort of thing, see how you like it. I know you’re not really into being in front of the camera anymore, but maybe something behind the scenes would be a better fit? You really are good at all this social media stuff, you know.”

“So it would be like take your sister to work day, but for the whole summer?” Lydia asked, trying to piece together how this would work.

“Sort of? I don’t know, maybe I can give you some responsibilities of your own if it works out? We can just play it by ear and see how things go.”

“OK, we can give it a shot. It’ll be fun,” Lydia said, putting on a smile.

“Great! Because I really love having you here, but I also really can’t afford to take off of work whenever you visit,” Lizzie said as she got up, putting her mug in the sink. “Now hurry up and finish that coffee, we have to leave in 10 minutes.”

Lydia just sighed and chugged her coffee, already planning out what to wear in her head.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time they got back to the apartment that evening, the Darcys were already setting the table for dinner. They always got home first since they had a car to and from Pemberly Digital, while Lizzie still insisted on walking or using mass transit unless it was an emergency or a special occasion.

As they were sitting down, Gigi leaned over and asked her quietly, “So how did things go today?”

“I think they went really well,” Lydia said, with a bright honest smile.

“Good, I’m glad,” Gigi said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So, Darce,” Lydia said, louder, turning towards the rest of the table. “How did the dancing go last night?”

Lizzie started laughing, as Darcy tucked his chin into his neck. “Well, it certainly went better than our first attempt at dancing, that much I can say for sure.”

“I had a lot of fun,” Lizzie said, smiling, and giving Darcy that lovesick look they shared so frequently these days.

Darcy cleared his throat, breaking himself out of it, turning his attention back towards Gigi and Lydia, “Did you two find something entertaining to do last night?”

“Oh yeah, loads of fun,” Lydia said, nodding.

“We got take out,” Gigi continued.

“Watched a movie,” Lydia added.

“And then we fell asleep,” Gigi finished, as she and Lydia nodded in agreement.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves without us last night,” Lizzie said.  Lydia could tell she sensed that something had changed, but she hoped that her sister would assume that she and Gigi were just becoming better friends.

“Oh it was fine, you two shouldn’t feel like you have to babysit us or drag us along with you. You should totally go on more date nights,” Gigi said.

“Yeah, we can totes entertain ourselves here,” Lydia added.

“In fact, we might even watch another movie together tonight,” Gigi concluded.

Lydia looked over and met Gigi’s gaze to make sure that Gigi was actually saying what she thought she was hearing.

“It could even become a regular thing, Lydia and Gigi’s movie nights!” Lydia agreed. Gigi nodded to Lydia, like it was just that easy, this thing they decided. And maybe it would be.

 

After dinner Gigi and Lydia ended back up in Gigi’s room. She flopped onto her bed and grabbed the remote, turning on the huge flatscreen TV on her wall.

“So we’re actually going to do the watching movies thing?” Lydia asked, flopping down next to Gigi on the bed.

“Well, there’s no reason we can’t watch movies sometimes, too,” Gigi said, and then turned to Lydia, suddenly looking unsure. “Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Lydia reassured her, settling in next to her. “What are we watching?”

 

And so it went, and it did become a regular thing for them, the movies and everything else.

They watched their old favorites, modern classics and actual classics, and things they’d never seen before.

When they watched Mean Girls they grabbed a bottle of rum made it a drinking game, shouting all of their favorite lines at the TV two seconds before the characters said them, and raised their hands (and their drinks) that they had been victimized by Regina George.

When they watched Clueless they speculated on whether or not their siblings had admitted to being totally and completely butt-crazy in love with each other yet (Lydia thought that Darcy had said it, but Lizzie was probably being stubborn and hadn’t said it out loud yet; Gigi argued that William was scared of getting rejected again and was waiting for Lizzie to say it first, while she was waiting for him to say it.)

When they watched Legally Blonde they attempted to have a bend-and-snap competition, that somehow turned into a cutest ass competition, which ended in a in a two way tie for first. “We’re all winners here, Peach,” Gigi whispered to Lydia as she pulled her in close.

One night they had a James Bond marathon and practiced their martini making skills. They agreed that Gigi’s were more accurate, while Lydia’s were both better at getting you drunk and better tasting. Once again, that night ended with everyone as a winner.

 

They took turns picking the movies, on one of Lydia’s nights she looked through the Darcys’ ridiculous, massive, alphabetically organized, movie collection and noticed something interesting, not for the first time. “Maybe we should watch Devil Wears Prada tonight, you sure own a _lot_ of Meryl Streep movies,” she turned to Gigi with a half smile. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“You do know that not all of these are technically mine, right?” Gigi said.

“Just what are you trying to say?” Lydia asked, Gigi stayed quiet, merely raising an eyebrow in response. “Are you telling me that _William Fucking Darcy_ is a closet Meryl Streep fan!?”

“Shh!” Gigi cautioned, but she was laughing.

“OH MY GOD. Does Lizzie know?” Lydia was having a hard time not shouting.

“I don’t think so. You can’t tell her!” Gigi said, slightly panicked.

“I totes can’t keep this to myself! This is important information!” Lydia tried to get up out of the bed, as if she was going to tell her sister right then, but Gigi pulled her back down, silencing her with a kiss.

“If you really want, you can tell her in the morning, okay?” Gigi said. Lydia just nodded and went in for another kiss.

 

Of course, they didn’t _just_ watch movies. Once the movies were over, got under the covers, and talked.

They talked about _him_ , and they talked about everything else.

They talked about families and futures, and previous exes.

They talked about all of their memories, the good, the bad, and the terrifying. Then, when they were all talked out, they turned out the lights and made some more memories, all their own.

And they were _good_ memories, every last one.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

On weekends they sometimes went shopping together, or they’d go out with Darcy and Lizzie and Fitz, and pretend like everything was exactly the same. Or they’d pretend that their newfound happiness and lightness was just a normal progression of their healing process. Their family and friends seemed too pleased to see them happy again to question it too much.

Other times on the weekends they would stay in. One lazy Sunday they spent most of the afternoon having a dance party to pop music in languages they didn’t understand. They had started with songs they did understand that morning, but all too soon they started hearing themselves in the lyrics of every song.

“I’m going to have to destroy my old iTunes, aren’t I?” Lydia said later, when they were all danced out, and laying side by side on Gigi’s bed.

“You can never listen to Ke$ha again,” Gigi said melodramatically, kissing Lydia’s shoulder.

“I’m more worried about Marina,” Lydia admitted. “ _How to be a Heartbreaker_ was my ringtone!”

“Aww, poor Peach,” Gigi crooned into Lydia’s ear, wrapping her up in her arms. “I’m sorry. We’ll find some new music to obsess over. Or we’ll just listen to our old music on repeat until it doesn’t hurt anymore.” Gigi became the big spoon to Lydia’s little, and they soon fell asleep cuddled together.

When Lydia woke up from their nap, she found a heart drawn on her cheek in eyeliner, and a matching one on Gigi’s.

***

One night they made the mistake of watching Practical Magic. Halfway through the movie they ended up having to put all their clothes back on and go into the kitchen to make Midnight Margaritas. Gigi drank so many that she ended up calling Lydia _Gilly_ for the rest of the night. Lydia drank so many that she let her.

When Lydia woke up the next morning, the space next to her was already vacant. She looked up to find Gigi spinning in circles, wearing a t-shirt, a sweater, Lydia’s knee-high socks, and her underwear.

“What are you doing, Sally?” Lydia asked, as she got out of bed, and put her hands on Gigi’s waist to still her. Gigi weebled, and wobbled, but didn’t fall.

“Hey, between the two of us we nearly have a full outfit!” Gigi said, looking down at Lydia, who was wearing her bra and a pair of shorts, rolled at the waist. Gigi had put her hands on Lydia’s shoulders and was swaying back and forth, as if she was dancing to a song that wasn’t playing.

“Gigi, why were you spinning?” Lydia asked again.

“You know why, it’s like the quote in the movie last night. I wanted to test it out,” she said, definitively.

And Lydia did know, they’d looked up the quote before going to bed the night before, and read it over and over. _You ever put your arms out and spin really, really fast? Well, that's what love is like. It makes your heart race. It turns the world upside down. But if you're not careful, if you don't keep your eyes on something still, you can lose your balance. You can't see what's happening to the people around you. You can't see that you're about to fall._

“So, did it work?” Lydia asked.

“I don’t know,” Gigi said. “I know that I didn’t fall this time.”

“No, you didn’t, I stopped you,” Lydia said.

“You caught me,” Gigi booped Lydia on the nose, and then spun away again.

***

They were driving to dinner in Darcy’s car, when _Radioactive_ came on the radio (He usually wouldn’t be listening to anything like that in his car, but at 3-to-1, he’d been outvoted. )

“Oh, Lydia you love this song,” Lizzie said from the passenger seat, turning the volume up a couple notches. As the familiar beat started up, Lydia expected to start feeling the similarly familiar feelings of shame and regret, but instead, she was feeling something else.

“Actually, Lizzie—” Gigi started.

“No, leave it, she’s right. This is a _great_ song,” Lydia said, smiling, because all she was thinking of was Gigi.

She and Gigi locked eyes, and Gigi smiled back at her. As they listened to the lyrics, Lydia knew she wasn’t the only one who had managed to replace her negative associations with the song with better ones.

***

“We could do this for real you know, if we really wanted to,” Lydia said quietly one night. They were curled up together on Gigi’s bed, Lydia’s head resting on her chest.

“Hmm?” Gigi questioned sleepily; Lydia could feel the rumble of the noise through her body.

“You know, this,” Lydia said, softer still. “Us, we don’t have to act like we’re just friends when we’re not in this room.”

Gigi shifted to sit up more and look at Lydia properly, her brow furrowing.

“Or, you know, we could just stay like this or whatever. That’s cool too,” Lydia said nervously, trying to backpedal.

“Lydia Bennet, are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” Gigi said, trying in vain to hold back a smile.

Lydia threw her face into the pillow. “Maybe,” came the muffled reply. She turned her head to look at Gigi, “Would you maybe want that at some point?”

“Yeah, yes, I think I would,” Gigi said, and Lydia thought it sounded like she had decided right in that moment. “At some point, I still don’t know how to tell everyone or how they’ll react.”

“We can figure that out later,” Lydia reassured her as they settled back down. “All in good time, Peach.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely didn't rewatch Practical Magic just because of this chapter. Nope. Not at all. Not even a little bit.


	6. Chapter 6

They were usually pretty good at being quiet, what with their siblings sleeping in the same apartment. Every now and then, however, one of them would slip up and be a bit louder than they intended. Or, in Gigi’s case on one particular night, a _lot_ louder than intended. Lydia just took it as an affirmation that she was doing something right and kept going.

A few moments later there was a banging on the door followed immediately by the door opening.

“Gigi, are you alright I—Ahh!” Darcy shouted, slamming the door shut again.

“William, what are you doing?” Gigi shouted back, covering her face with her hands in mortification.

“I heard screaming, I just wanted to—to make sure that everything was alright,” Darcy replied through the door, sounding equally embarrassed, and slightly confused.

“It was good screaming,” Lydia told him.

“It was _very_ good screaming!” Gigi reaffirmed.

“ _Oh god,_ ” came the barely audible reply. “I’m going to go back to bed now,” Darcy said, louder this time. “And try to forget this ever happened.”

As soon as the footsteps receded to where they figured Darcy was probably out of earshot, they collapsed in hysterical laughter.

“I don’t know why I’m laughing, that was horrifying!” Gigi managed to say. They were both laughing so hard they were near tears.

“Oh my god, his _face_! I don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow morning, but his face was _priceless_!” Lydia said.

***

The next morning when they woke up, they just lay beside each other, holding hands and staring at the ceiling.

Eventually, Gigi broke the silence with a heavy sigh and Lydia said “We have to get up and go out there, don’t we?”

“Time to face the music, Peach,” Gigi said, squeezing Lydia's hand extra tight before letting go.

They got up and got dressed, not bothering to put on sweaters or anything to cover their various hickeys and whatnot, like they’d been so careful to previously.

They walked down the hallway to the kitchen hand in hand, only letting go when Darcy caught sight of them and paled. Lizzie’s back had been turned, so she hadn’t seen it.

“Oh! Good morning you two,” Lizzie said brightly when she saw them.

“Good morning,” Gigi said quietly, while Lydia mumbled out “Morning, Lizzie.”

They went about making their breakfasts as normally as possible, but it was a much quieter process than usual, and Darcy in particular was incredibly awkward, even for him. Lizzie clearly noticed something was up, but it wasn’t until Darcy nearly dropped the milk that Lydia had been handing him that Lizzie actually spoke up.

“Alright, what is going on here?” She asked. The other three stayed silent, refusing to even make eye contact with her. “Seriously? Does this have anything to do with what happened last night?”

Three heads shot up, Gigi and Lydia trying to figure out what Lizzie knew, and Darcy clearly wanting to stop Lizzie from continuing, but unable to find the words to ask her to do so.

“Wha—what happened last night?” Gigi asked, her voice squeaking a bit.

“I don’t know! All I know is that we heard a scream and when William came back after checking things out all he said was ‘false alarm’ and then he went back to sleep.”

“Oh, okay,” Gigi said, she and Lydia both visibly relaxing.

“Oh come on! Is no one seriously going to tell me?” Lizzie asked incredulously. “Not even you, Lydia? I thought we Bennets were supposed to stick together?”

Lydia glanced at Gigi, but then went back to staring at her cereal.

Lizzie groaned, frustrated, and the conversation was dropped for a little bit, everyone eating their breakfast in silence, while continued to puzzle through things in her head.

“Okay, will you at least tell me who screamed last night?”

“What?” Darcy said, speaking for the first time since Lydia and Gigi had entered the kitchen.

“Whatever happened clearly had to do with the scream, but nothing bad happened, so who was screaming and why?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that nothing bad happened,” Darcy said under his breath.

Lydia snickered quietly, remembering the look on his face again, and Gigi hit her lightly on the arm to silence her.

Lizzie turned her gaze towards them, “And that’s the other thing,” she started. “You two both know what happened. So were you both there? It was the middle of the night, were you still watching movies together?”

“No, the movie had ended,” Lydia answered, finding her tongue had loosened slightly after her giggle-fit.

“So then why were you still in Gigi’s—oh,” Lizzie’s eyes widened, her face reddening as the pieces fell into place. She glanced at Darcy who, with his chin was tucked into his neck, was still valiantly trying to pretend his breakfast was the most interesting thing in the room. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah, Lydia’s been sleeping in her guest room about as frequently as you’ve been sleeping in yours,” Gigi said.

Darcy looked up at that, this was a piece of information he didn’t have before. “So this has been going on for awhile then?” Lydia and Gigi both just nodded.

“And you caught them last night?” Lizzie asked Darcy, who responded with a nod and a grimace.

An awkward silence fell once again as everyone processed what was going on. Lizzie looked confused, and at least a little bit horrified, and Lydia wasn’t sure if she was thinking about Darcy having walked in on them, or what she and Gigi had been doing in the first place.

“OK, but beyond the mega-awkwardness of him walking in on us, how OK are you guys feeling about this?” Lydia asked, unable to bear the silence any longer.

“I—I think I’ve learned from the Jane and Bing situation that my meddling in the romantic affairs of others often ends poorly; so long as my sister is happy, that is what matters most to me,” Darcy said.

“Um, ditto I guess?” Lizzie added, her brow furrowed.

“Really?” Gigi asked, smiling brightly as she reached for Lydia’s hand.

“Yeah, are you sure, Lizzie?” Lydia was trying to read her sister’s face, but all she was getting was _uncomfortable_. “You’re not weirded out by this or anything?”

Lizzie still looked a little confused and slightly hurt. “No, it’s not that at all. I’m just surprised you were both able to keep this from me,” she said. Then, turning to Lydia, she said “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

Lydia looked Lizzie straight in her eye, held her gaze, and said, “Sorry, Peach.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck so hard at endings, but unless someone is seriously desperate for a sequel or an epilogue or something, this is it! This was my first LBD fic, so let me know if you enjoyed it. I love these girls, and I’d love to write more for them if people were interested.


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